Health Information Exchanges Improve Care, Decrease Costs

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that health information exchanges reduced both wasteful utilization and health care costs.

Health information exchanges allow integrated care providers to share patient medical records with other health care providers via EHR systems. The study examined three types of information exchanges: community health exchanges, which allow for information exchanges with all providers; and proprietary and enterprise exchanges, which limit exchanges to certain providers or hospital networks.

“Up until this point, the promise of health information exchanges to improve care and reduce costs has been theoretical,” Nir Menachemi, PhD, MPH, professor at the Richard M Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University, said in a press release. “We now have reasonably strong evidence that there are benefits to using health information exchanges.”

The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of articles on health information exchange published between 2014 and 2017. They found that 68.3% of articles reported a beneficial effect from health information exchanges. Additionally, only 7.9% reported any adverse effects related to exchanges.

Study results showed that community health exchanges were most effective, compared with propriety ad enterprise exchanges.

“It looks like community health information exchanges might be more likely to achieve improved outcomes,” Dr Menachemi said.

The researchers found that the exchanges reduced duplicated procedures, reduced imaging utilization, improved patient safety, and reduced costs.

“[Our findings] represent progress in reaching the national goals of better-quality care, improved population health and lower costs,” Dr Menachemi concluded. “This finding bodes well for health information exchange's ability to deliver on anticipated improvements in the delivery of care.”

—David Costill

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